Oxford University awarded £1.25 million official funding to accelerate vital research

Published by

Peter Davison

Official funding of £1.25 million has been awarded to Oxford University for activities that translate the university’s social sciences research into social, economic and behavioural impact.

The funding, the maximum grant available from the Impact Acceleration Account, has been given by the Economic and Social Research Council, part of UKRI – the public body sponsored by the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology.

Professor Chas Bountra, Oxford’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for Innovation, welcomed the announcement, saying, "We have incredibly talented social scientists here at Oxford whose vital research is already making an impact by addressing some of the most complex economic and societal issues affecting people around the world today, such as inequality, cybercrime and economic and political instability.

"This funding will enable our dedicated researchers to accelerate their research and innovation so that its impact can be felt more quickly from a local level to a global scale."

One of 32 institutions to receive an award, under the scheme, Oxford will be able to use the funding flexibly and responsively in line with strategic aims and to unlock the value of social science research.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.